Fifty years ago, on a steamy summer night like the ones that have suffocated the Danbury area lately, Paul Baker stepped into a wrestling ring at the old Lee's Field.

And ran for his life.

Eddie Graham, a two-legged tank with sweat on his face and spirits on his breath, spotted Baker with a silver microphone and, seemingly, a target on his chest.

"As I did the introductions to the tremendous crowd," Baker recalled Tuesday night, "Eddie, who reeked of booze, kept throwing things out of the ring. He came over to me, tore the mike from my hands, and threw it out into the crowd.

"I didn't wait to see what he planned to do next. As he headed for me, I made a record-setting dash through the ropes and out of the ring."

As it turned out, Graham had allegedly been arrested for drunken driving earlier that day in Westport and the Danbury wrestling match had been in real jeopardy of being cancelled.

Previdi, who was a county sheriff at the time, picked up a telephone and had Graham released so the wrestler could honor his contract in Danbury, Baker said.

According to 1959 newspaper accounts, there were about 1,500 spectators at Lee's Field that August night to see the Graham Brothers -- Eddie and Dr. Jerry -- raise hell in black boots and defend their tag-team championship.

The Graham Brothers battled Mark Lewin and Don Curtis, a pair of beefy wrestlers from Buffalo, N.Y., who often donned capes as part of their wrestling get-up.

"For me, that night began when I went into the wrong dressing room," Baker said. "I walked in on the wrestlers instead of the workers. There was a guy cutting a little slit in his forehead.

"Apparently, that's where his opponent would be cutting his face with an unseen object later on. They shooed me out of there in a hurry."

But it was nothing compared to Baker's all-out sprint across the ring a short time later.

"When Eddie arrived, he was still very drunk and went berserk in the ring, trying to attack the referee, the opponents, and everyone else near him," Baker said.

"Some of it may have been an act, but I wasn't about to test him," Baker added. "The match went on and it was nasty. It got so rough -- probably an act -- but so rough the referee disqualified the Graham Brothers."

The way Baker explained it, champions didn't lose their belts in those days if the match ended with a disqualification.

Pete Montesi, one of Danbury's favorite sons and a decorated World War II veteran, was the promoter of the Graham Brothers event and just about every other big-time wrestling and boxing match that came to town back then.

Every match was a Damon Runyon novel come to life, with characters better suited to gin mills and all-night card games than church pews and black-tie affairs.

"Pete Montesi was a tremendous person," Baker said of the late war hero. "Everyone loved him. Jack Dempsey would come to his events. Ray Robinson would come to his events.

"He brought all the greats to Danbury for indoor and outdoor shows," Baker said. "Among those who appeared were the long-time champion Bruno Sammartino and before him, the legendary Antonino Rocco, The Barefooted Wonder,' who always showed up in a big limousine."

Danbury's Barbara Morehouse remembers her uncle as someone with uncommon courage and a personality that could sell ringside seats to a man squeezing his last few bucks.

"Anything that happened in Danbury, he was the promoter," she said. "I especially remember the wrestling matches."

Montesi lost his left leg and left arm in World War II, after jumping on a grenade to help save the lives of his buddies. The selfless act earned him the Purple Heart and a lifetime of admiration and respect from the folks in Danbury, who were only too happy to buy his wrestling tickets.

Lee's Field is gone now, much like the forgotten industry that once made Danbury the hat-making capital of the world.

But the ghosts of colorful men in wrestling shorts -- colliding on the stage with grunts and groans -- remain, especially on steamy summer nights in August.